Child support

[Creany172]

25 year old daughter messaged today to say that she had just spent some time with her father and he has told her that he is getting a loan in order to pay the £5,500 he owes me in child support. Child Maintenance Service finally managed to get him to comply!

Problem is he has told her that I should give her the money!!

I am furious! He has used this opportunity to drive a wedge between my daughter and I.

My thoughts are that he resented paying the child support when she was a child because he hated giving the money to me. But when she was a child and his payments failed I still supported her financially. I kept a roof over her head, clothes on her back and food in her stomach.

I had been hoping to receive this money in order to get myself out of debt (which was incurred by coping as a single parent and trying to provide for my family) and now he has planted the seed in her mind that the money is hers!!

Advice?

What a prick. I would simply explain what you have said here. You will be using it to pay pff the debts you accrued because of his failure to pay the legal minimum child support. Telling your daughter that she should get the arrears is just another way of trying to damage your relationship with your daughter and ultimately it reflects the fact that he is happy to use her to get at you. She might understand that immediately because he has worked on her. Hopefully she will learn to see through him.

If she’s 25 then she’s old enough to realise what a dick he was not to pay the maintenance when you needed it.